I took a friend car shopping today. She was looking at the... er... bottom end of the market, so we went to some very interesting places. Not bottom shops. Car lots.
The thing that struck me most was the incredible variance in the price of very similar vehicles even on the same lot and I'm pretty sure that this is because salesmen are actually trying to con us using bigotry.
Rather than putting the correct price on a car, they will typically display twice as much or more.
If you are a decent haggler, you'll get a much, much lower price than if you're not. There's a certain type of person who's a good haggler. More often than not, they're also a bit of a dick, but that's incidental (although it's worth noting that I am rubbish at haggling, which either supports or emphatically opposes it, depending on how you feel about me).
So... basically, the car salesmen are discriminating against certain personality types. Wankers. The salesmen, not the rubbish hagglers.
And it's not just cars. Have you ever bought double glazing? Did they quote a ridiculously high price and then go through the performance of phoning their 'manager' to get you a better price only to end up offering you about a quarter of the original price. Dickheads.
You don't get it in the supermarket. Or the butchers. Or the button shop. The price they display is the price you get and it doesn't make any difference if you're a bit of a di... er... haggler.
We didn't buy a car in the end. Or double glazing.
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